Abstract
The relationship between in-library use and circulation is very important for library management. This paper studies empirically the relationship by examining about 110,000 records of in-library use in two Japanese academic libraries. As a result of this study, it is clear that the number of circulation can be a reliable predictive indicator of the number of in-library use. For example, seasonal variation of in-library use, synchronous obsolescence of in-library use and the number of in-library use by disciplines, are predictable by regression models in which the number of circulation is an independent variable. The coefficients of determination of the models are, in turn, 0.87, 0.94, 0.85, respectively, which indicate very high correlation between in-library use and circulation. It is also clarified, however, that there are some systematic errors by the models, that is, some factors cause systematically underestimation or overestimation of in-library use.
